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Ways to Encourage Thankfulness this Week During my everyday, there are a handful of phrases that I may as well record myself saying and play on repeat. Gems like “Put on your shoes.” and “Put your toys away.” and “Be nice to your brother/sister!” escape my lips more times than I care to think about. But the one that seems to come out the most? “Say thank you.” People seem to do things for my kids pretty often—things like hold doors for them or offer them free stickers. I do things for them all the time. They even do things for each other. I want them to be polite, to learn the proper social graces they’ll need as adults, so I encourage them to say thank you. But encouraging our kids to say thank you is just that, it’s a lesson about social graces. Lessons about real gratitude go much...

Compassion: what it is and why it’s important If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” ~Dali Lama When I first heard that Brooksfield’s theme this year is compassion, I was pleased, impressed and, to be honest, a little surprised. When it comes to the qualities that I believe are important to plant in young minds and hearts early, the ones that I, without a doubt, want my children to know well, compassion is definitely on the list. But it’s a tricky one, isn’t it? Gratitude, kindness, politeness, all of these sort of roll of our tongues as we guide our children through hellos and pleases and thank yous. Teaching these comes naturally as we coach social interactions every day. Compassion, however, goes several levels deeper. It’s not a quality we can easily reinforce by a social grace or quick phrase....

What’s for dinner in your house tonight? If you’re not quite sure, I promise you’re in good company! Dinner: a time when we want everyone to come together to pull off a meal during the busiest hour of the day. It’s a perennial family paint point. Everyone struggles with some aspect, be it getting everyone to sit down for a meal at the same time or getting the pickier family members to give the green foods a try. We struggle with all of the above here but have picked up a few tips and tricks along our roller coaster ride with family dinner. Here are some things we do in our home that help us feel better about our nightly meals. Plan a menu I have an on-again, off-again relationship with meal planning. When the school year begins and I fall into full on nesting mode, I dutifully...

If you peeked into my kitchen at about 7:30am any morning last week, you would have found me lazily moving about, sipping my coffee, slowly fixing breakfasts, acting as if we had the entire long day ahead of us. If you then peeked back in at 8am, you would have found me scrambling to get shoes on feet, gathering forms and lunch boxes and, most importantly, people, and breathlessly pushing us all out the door. Somewhere between 7:30 and 8:00 it would occur to me that summer is over, school is in session, and a whole new routine needs to get moving. That’s how it is this time every year. We get so comfortable in our summer swing that adjusting to start times and end times, drop offs and pick ups, is rough. It all feels so uncomfortable and unnatural at first. Of course, we all know that by the...

Every year, parents of five year old Montessori preschool children are faced with the decision of sending their children to kindergarten or to the third year of Montessori education. Many send them back, but a few opt for kindergarten. The latter decision may work out well on the face of it for a number of reasons. After two years in a Montessori school a child is generally well-adjusted, alert, broadly stimulated intellectually, muscularly coordinated and has refined sensory perception. Such a child is adaptable and, thus, performs well wherever he finds himself. This is, of course, quite pleasing to teachers and parents, and makes the child feel good. What is completely overlooked is that the child misses the fulfilling completion of the three-year cycle in a Montessori program. During the third year everything he has been doing for the past two years comes to maturity, resulting in exciting leaps in...

Spending time with my kids in the kitchen is one of my favorite stressful activities! The potential for disaster is great when you mix messy ingredients, heating elements, and excited little people on step stools wielding blunt objects. But the potential for fantastic memories, not to mention the little self-esteem boost your little one will get from having made something? Those are most definitely greater. One of my favorite recipes to make with my kids is this banana bread recipe, adapted from one found on my all-time favorite recipe blog, Smitten Kitchen . Her recipe is just lovely and delicious so feel free to just follow it. Our adaptations below have come about through dozens upon dozens of trials and errors and ultimately aim to make it just a tad healthier. The brilliance of this recipe is that my four-year old can more or less make it with very little...

Excerpt from “What is Montessori Elementary?” by David Kahn Parents often ask whether the Montessori elementary program, with its emphasis on small-group activity, provides enough opportunities for social development. Moreover, they may wonder whether a multi-age class affords enough same-age peers for each child to have a wide choice of friends. Like Montessori preschool , Montessori elementary is based on three-year age groupings. Students in the first, second, and third years are grouped together in the same classroom, just as three-, four-, and five-year-olds are together in the preschool. At both levels, the multi-age grouping provides children with opportunities for broad social development. Friendships developed in a multi-age setting have depth. Children make an effort to get along together because they know they will be together for three years. Moreover, the presence...

Excerpt from Brook’s Field of Dreams, 1996 Your child is like a seed growing into a flower. The Montessori Method allows the child to grow at his or her own natural pace, and we should therefore try to let go and not be so concerned with instant results by digging out that “seed” to check on its daily development. This quote of Maria Montessori captures the beauty of her method. She believed that children learn on their own and the goals of early childhood education should be to cultivate a child’s natural desire to learn. To her, learning to read, write, and do math should be as natural to the child as learning to walk and talk. The Montessori environment and equipment invite children to learn these sk ills during their own periods of interest and readiness. Teachers show their respect for the rhythm...

The weather is growing warmer. Really, I promise it is. For the first time in months I see nary a snowflake in the ten-day forecast. Get ready, friends, winter is fading! I love spring. It has long been my favorite season and I ache for it more this year than I ever have. Everyone creeps out of hibernation and takes to the streets. Early morning walks for coffee, playdates at the park, impromptu sidewalk parties right outside your front door… springtime is when we all come alive. Throughout the winter, my daughter and I wrote up a list of our favorite things to do in the spring. We run through the list on our rides to school, dreaming of the days when we’ll finally be able to turn dreams to reality. Here are a few of our favorites: A day at the park Swings and slides. Games of tag and...

“Goodnight moon. Goodnight cow jumping over the moon. Goodnight light and the red balloon.” It didn’t take long after my daughter was born for the little bunny and his goodnight routine to become part of our goodnight routine. The little toy house and the kittens and the mittens. Before long we could recite it from memory, a blessing when bedtime found us with achy, tired eyes. We marked our children’s growth by its pages: the first time they reached out a chubby little hand to flip the page, the first time they engaged with the story, the first time they excitedly pointed out the red balloon. And, eventually, the day when my daughter could also recite the routine from memory. Though her words are now solidly imprinted on my brain and in my heart, I had never taken a moment to learn more about Margaret Wise...